More Bad Faith From The Worst President In History

Republicans are desperate to keep a stranglehold on power and block all of the initiatives for change that caused the American people everywhere but in most of the old slave-holding states and much of the Mormon West to elect Barack Obama. Remove the most backward and reactionary states that tend to hold the country back-- Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, Wyoming and Idaho-- and Obama's landslide, and mandate, in the "real" America looks even more stunning than his more than solid 365-162 Electoral College win. Recently we've noted that the Obama team being vigilant about Bush's final days, cognizant of all the damage they're likely to do on the way out.

They are frantic to do whatever it takes to prevent the Democrats from getting to that magic-- though largely symbolic-- 60-vote "filibuster-proof" majority and are doing all they can to steal elections in Minnesota and Alaska and are pulling out all the heavy guns in Georgia. This morning, though, the Washington Post outlines how the Bush Regime is hoping-- and plotting-- to cling to power even if they are shut out in the Senate.

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies-- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions-- into senior civil service posts.

The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.

Similar efforts are taking place at other agencies. Two political hires at the Labor Department have already secured career posts there, and one at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying to make the switch.

...The personnel moves come as Bush administration officials are scrambling to cement in place policy and regulatory initiatives that touch on issues such as federal drinking-water standards, air quality at national parks, mountaintop mining and fisheries limits.

MY PLAN FOR DEALING WITH BUSH REGIME "BURROWING"

by Ken

The Post article Howie cites makes clear that this business of "burrowing" -- converting political appointees to civil service status -- isn't new. ("In its last 12 months, the Clinton administration approved 47 such moves, including seven at the senior executive level.") The difference is that, well, this is the Bush regime, meaning that the overwhelming preponderance of its political employees are at best ideological extremists, at worst career criminals, and in all likelihood both.

Luckily, I have a plan:

In the new spirit of postpartisanship and healing and letting us all be friends, the Obama administration pledges to dedicate a staff within the Justice Dept. to prosecuting a certain bare minimum amount of crime committed during the previous administration.

Pick a figure -- say 1%. If the new administration commits to ensuring that at minimum 1% of the crimes committed under the Bush regime are prosecuted, that should be enough to ensure that everyone who worked for it, and every out-of-government crony on whose behalf (and for whose profit) crimes were committed, dies in prison.

Then if there's some way to include the confiscation of all assets and the selling of all living relatives into slavery, better still.

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